This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Meeting Dukkha with the Dharma ~ Diana Clark. It likely contains inaccuracies.
The following talk was given by Diana Clark at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. Please visit website www.audiodharma.org to find the authoritative record of this talk.
Good evening. Welcome. It’s nice to see you all practice together.
Tonight, I would like to talk a little bit about a simile that gets used a lot in Buddhist teachings, but I’d like to look at a different aspect of it, with a little bit different emphasis and a little bit different perspective than what we normally hear.
The simile is the simile of the raft. A loose translation goes: “Imagine a person in the course of a journey arrives at a great expanse of water. The near shore is dubious and perilous, and the far shore is a sanctuary free of peril. But there’s no ferry boat or bridge to take them across the water.” So the person thinks, “What if I collected grass, twigs, branches, and leaves and bound them together as a raft? Then, supported by the raft and paddling with my hands and feet, I should then be able to reach the far shore.”
There’s more to this simile, but I’m going to just stay with that. This idea that we are here, and we can see, “Oh, there’s some water that’s going to be a trouble. And over there, not here, over there is where it feels like it would be safe and comfortable.”
Part of the reason why I wanted to talk about this is I saw a translation recently that used this word “dubious.” I just love this word. This idea that where we are on this shore seems a little bit dubious and perilous. I want to talk about that. But before I do, I’ll unpack a little bit at a very high level. In the next talk I do, I’ll continue on the simile of the raft and unpack some other elements, but just to give you a high level: the person on a journey encounters a great expanse of water. We could consider the journey as life, and this great expanse of water is sometimes understood as a flood, something that has a lot of power behind it, a lot of force going in a certain direction. We can think of it as this overwhelmed feeling or just being swept away, a feeling we sometimes get when we just feel like, “This is too much,” and are just getting carried away. Maybe this happens when we have some particular stress or difficulties, or maybe it’s when we have some existential angst, when we realize, “Oh yeah, death’s going to happen to us too.” Or we have a loved one that has a terrible diagnosis or perhaps some terrible loss, a grief when somebody has died. Just this sense of, “Okay, this movement is happening, and we can’t stop it. There’s nothing to do to stop it. It’s just the way things are.”
We could also say that this great expanse of water, in the Buddhist teachings, is this notion of ignorance—this thinking that we can control everything, that we can avoid everything that’s uncomfortable. And then we realize, “Wow, I can’t.” Even though you feel like you’re doing everything right, difficulties are arising.
So, being on a journey and coming across this flood, this big expanse of water, and then the near shore is uncomfortable too. The translator here is using the word “dubious and perilous.” I’ll unpack that in a moment. But then there’s this notion, or maybe it’s intuition, or maybe you’ve had some glimpses, or maybe you’ve heard some teachings that touched something deeply inside of you. There’s this recognition: “Oh, there’s freedom is possible. There’s something different than the uncomfortableness that’s being experienced on this shore. Something else is possible, is available.” Some freedom, some peace, some ease. This translator is using the word “sanctuary,” a place where there isn’t the same suffering that we’re experiencing.
And then this whole notion of the raft, of what’s going to take us from where the difficulties are to the peace, freedom, and ease. There are a number of ways we could translate that. In this context, I’ll say the path of practice, or we could say the Dharma, the teachings, the way things are. Or maybe specifically, some people would even say the Eightfold Path or something like this is a way to get to the other side.
So what I want to talk about is this near shore, where we are. The far shore is freedom and peace and ease. And we have maybe a sense that it’s possible. Chances are you wouldn’t have started a meditation practice or come to a meditation center unless there’s something in you that has this idea, this belief that, “Oh yeah, something different is available.” Maybe it’s not clear what it is. Maybe it’s very clear what it is. But whether that’s clear or unclear, what often is clear is, “Oh, I’m here,” not in the midst of that peace and freedom and ease.
On a basic level, we could say that all beings think they should be happy and want to be happy, but most often find that they’re not—not as happy as they would like to be, or think they should be, or as happy as they think they could be. We could say that’s one way of thinking about this near shore and far shore: “I’m not as happy as I want, and I believe that happiness could be over there, and there’s just something in between where I want to be.”
So one thing about this near shore is that it’s uncomfortable. Because if it weren’t uncomfortable, if we were on a journey and we encountered a big expanse of water, we would just turn around or just hang out there and enjoy the view or the sound of the water going by. We would just enjoy it. But we have this feeling like, “No, we want to be somewhere else.” That in itself is part of the suffering.
There’s something that’s really noteworthy, or for me that touches me, and that is that the Buddha talked a lot about this near shore, like where we actually are. There’s no expectation that we have to be anywhere else. We don’t have to be somebody else. We don’t have to be having different experiences or create a completely new life or something like this.
In fact, the First Noble Truth—many of you are familiar with this, there are Four Noble Truths, and the first one is there is dukkha.1 Dukkha is this word that has this wide, wide range of meanings, from just mild irritation to absolute terror, the most awful experience. So, uncomfortableness in the whole range. It sometimes gets translated as suffering, as stress, dissatisfaction. Sometimes it’s just that feeling like it’s not quite right, even if we can’t even say what is not quite right. And sometimes it’s just flat-out awfulness. So this one word covers this big range.
There’s obvious dukkha. We all know this about just pain. Our bodies are vulnerable. They get injured. Last week, I took a little tumble when I was out for a hike, and I thought, “Oh, okay, you know, it’s going to be fine.” Wow. The bruising and… I don’t know, it just turned out to be, “Oh, okay. Yeah. This is dukkha. This is what it means to have a human body,” is to have some pain after taking a tumble on a hike. Nobody’s immune from this. Of course, this is what happens. Illness, loss, right? These are the obvious things of dukkha.
Then there are also the subtle ones, just the way that things change. We think, “Okay, we finally got all our ducks in a row,” and then something else happens. It’s like these ducks never quite stay in a row. They’re always swimming and doing something or paddling. Or maybe this subtle dukkha of always having to prop up this sense of self, making sure that we look good, that people don’t really know how unsure we are about some things, or making sure that people understand how capable we are, or whatever it is, whatever ideas we have about ourselves, trying to defend in obvious and not-so-obvious ways.
And I would say a subtle dukkha that turns out to be so prevalent that it supports the real, real set of dukkha is this way that we’re always trying to get away from the obvious dukkha. How we always have this resistance, this sense of, “Well, things should be different. Things should be otherwise.” I’ve spoken about this in a number of different ways. Sometimes we’re often saying no to our experience. Whatever it is, there’s this subtle, “No, it should be tweaked a little bit,” or “No, it has to be different in obvious ways.”
I appreciate this is the First Noble Truth: there is dukkha. And it’s not to discourage us. It’s not to say, “Oh, everything is suffering, you better just get used to it.” It’s not that kind of a feeling. Instead, it’s just so that we can stop blaming ourselves, so we can stop thinking, “Oh, I must be doing something wrong because I’m having some uncomfortableness in my life.” It’s not that you’re doing your life wrong; it’s just that life includes dukkha. That’s just the way it is. And part of our suffering, our dukkha, is not really believing that.
This is a little bit what I want to talk about today. We tend to personalize it and feel like it’s a personal failing when there are difficulties. I’m not saying that we can’t do anything about it and everything we do is perfect and any discomfort we have is somebody else’s fault. That’s not what I’m saying at all. But there is this way in which we often have this subtle sense of, “What am I missing if I’m having uncomfortableness?” We have this subtle way in which we just think we’re failing or doing it wrong, and we’re just blaming ourselves.
So maybe what we could say is one of the main points of Buddhism, or this practice, is to dissolve our habitual tendency of trying to make everything be better, which is perfectly natural. Of course, we want to feel comfortable. It’s just not always possible. It’s that simple. It’s just not always possible. I have this terrible knot and bruise on my leg. It’s just not possible that that’s going to go away and that I’m going to be able to sit and walk comfortably. It’s just not going to happen right now.
So this idea of the near shore where we are is “dubious.” I want to unpack that a little bit. Dubious, maybe we could define it as filled with false promises and an unreliable foundation for happiness and well-being. If anybody’s interested, the Pali word is asanka.2 This is not a common word. We could translate the Pali as “suspect” or “unreliable” or “deceptive.”
So what does that mean for us as practitioners? Sometimes we have this idea that, “Okay, well if I just get my ducks in a row,” or if I could just get things perfect. This perfectionism shows up in our life. “Okay, if I just meditate perfectly”—whatever perfect is, right? That’s a moving target, of course. But just these subtle ways we think, “Well, clearly I’m not doing something right. I just need to do it more perfectly.” Our life would go better if we were the perfect meditator, or knew the suttas perfectly, or had perfect retreats, or something like this. This is dubious because, of course, perfection isn’t attainable. It’s just this mere concept that we make up to say, “Well, whatever perfection is, is something over there, clearly not what we’re having because it’s uncomfortable.” And then if we were to come over here, then perfection would be just a little bit more something else, right? It’s something that we seem to be chasing after. Just look at people who have a perfect amount of money; they have a lot of money, and then, “Oh no, no, no, they need more.” Or, “I have a certain amount of fitness.” “Oh, nope, they need more.” Just this inherent dissatisfaction with what they have.
So this perfection is unattainable, or just getting everything exactly all lined up. That actually doesn’t exist. It’s a little bit dubious because we are often chasing some external experiences to help us feel better, some validation from others, or some attainments. “I achieved this, I have that.” We can put the grasping for attainments onto any project: meditation, to be able to count the breaths up to 10, and then once you do 10, “Oh, okay, now I need to do that again,” or need to sit so many retreats, or have so many meditative experiences, or something like this, or meditate daily for so many days, or read so many meditation books, whatever it might be. We kind of feel like these attainments and validation, we let people know, “Oh, I did this. I sat a three-month-long retreat. Look at me.” And we feel like, “Oh, okay, that didn’t quite work.” You know, maybe it works for one second, and then it’s like, “Oh, I’m still the same person.” There’s this way in which we are often looking for things outside of us to make us feel okay: praise or love, attention from other people to make us feel like we’re okay.
And this is dubious because any sense of okay-ness that is built on things external to us is not reliable. Of course, it isn’t, because it turns out we don’t get to control the whole world so that we only get the praise and achieve the things that we want to achieve in the way that we feel like we want in order to feel good. But there’s a way in which we want this, to feel like, “Okay, I’ll be happier if I have some more external validation.”
This also ties into this idea of control. We do not control nearly what we think we do. And sometimes we have this feeling like, “Okay, well, things would be okay if I could just control myself, control my thoughts, or control my emotions, or control those people over there.” You know, if they would just stop doing whatever it is they’re doing that doesn’t seem quite right to us. But there’s this way that even though we realize that we can’t control, we just keep trying. Controlling other people turns out not to work. It’s a little bit annoying for the other people, and it’s annoying for us too because it doesn’t work, and it impacts our relationships. So it’s dubious, trying to control things. We just keep on discovering that we don’t actually control what we wish we could.
So that’s the dubious side of the near shore, the Buddha talking about the First Noble Truth: there is dukkha.
I also want to talk a little bit about “perilousness,” because there have been ways in which we’ve been trying to deal with these difficulties that just lead to more difficulties. We thought that it would be helpful, and maybe some of these patterns or behaviors were helpful at one time in one setting, but we find ourselves repeating them in a way that isn’t so helpful anymore. We might have some addictive or compulsive behaviors; we just feel compelled to do something that just isn’t helpful. Maybe it offers some short-term relief, but it just ends up deepening suffering. Whether we’re turning to just entertaining ourselves on these little rectangular devices we carry in our pockets, or whether we are distracting ourselves or zoning out with Netflix or something like this, or doom-scrolling, or writing mean comments on social media, or whether we find ourselves overeating or drinking alcohol in a way that’s not helpful. There are so many ways in which we find ourselves compelled with behavior that turns out to just lead to more suffering. So this is a perilous way; it just turns out to lead to greater and greater suffering.
Or maybe there’s this way that’s also perilous, that we have this habit of blaming others. “Oh, it’s if this…” I wish I could come up with an example right now. I know somebody who does this an awful lot. Somebody who has a tremendous practice but can’t see the way in which they are always blaming others. They have a certain amount of freedom and inner knowledge, but when something goes wrong, they’re always like, “Oh, that person should have done this,” or “This company should stop doing that,” or something like this, instead of turning around and seeing, “Oh, well, you know, you have a role in things.” Blaming is not a way forward. Maybe in the moment it feels good because we get to be self-righteous. “I’m right, I’m doing everything right, and those people over there or that person did something wrong.” But it perpetuates resentment or the sense of separation and doesn’t allow us to actually be with the discomfort. It’s a way in which we distract ourselves so often, to start blaming. But then the resentment really eats at us, really eats one’s insides.
Or maybe something that’s perilous is that we really believe something is fundamentally wrong with us, and we have this deep shame, or this inner critic is really loud, and we believe it. We have this voice that’s telling us that we’re inadequate in some kind of way. And this, of course, is perilous because it closes the heart and closes the mind and causes us to shrink. We don’t have the confidence to maybe take risks and learn new things or to see a bigger picture.
I could go on with more ways in which things are dubious and perilous, but I don’t want this to just be a long list of all the terrible things. For me, there’s a way in which it feels also a little bit freeing just to read, “Oh, this is the human condition. This is what humans do. It’s not a personal failing.” So often, in this era of social media, we get a curated view of people’s lives. We see what they want us to see. But the truth is, so many people—I wanted to say everybody, but I don’t know everybody, so I can’t say that—but I don’t know of people who don’t have this.
So what do we do with this? This path of practice is to acknowledge the First Noble Truth: there is dukkha. And rather than turning away from it, can we acknowledge it as best we can? This is uncomfortable. Just to notice, to be with uncomfortableness and not distract ourselves, not blame others, not blame ourselves, not collapse into it, but just to be able to say, “Yeah, this is dukkha.”
And there’s this way that when we give up beliefs that life will just be smooth and comfortable, when we give up that idea that it should be smooth and comfortable and that it’s smooth and comfortable for everybody else, there can be a certain amount of relaxation. “Right, okay, it’s just human. This is what it means to be human, is to have some of these difficulties.”
So what are some of the things that we can do when we acknowledge that there is dukkha? I’ll mention a few; this could be a really long list.
Can we recognize expectations? I talked about how we’re here on the near shore, there’s this expanse of water, and then there’s a far shore. So we have this idea like, “Oh, I should be over there on the far shore, and I’m not. I’m over here.” There’s this way in which we could say this is a type of expectation. In this simile, somebody is literally looking across water to the far shore. But often what’s happening is we have an idea in our head. It’s just imagination. It’s just something in our head about how things should be. And then we have a relationship with this imaginary thing, and then we have what’s actually happening, and the expectations get laid on top, and they don’t match. They never do. So just to notice, “Oh yeah, I’m making up this idea of how it is, and I’m feeling that discomfort from how it’s not matching what’s actually happening.” As best you can, notice your expectations and just say, “Oh, yep. Those are thoughts, and what’s actually happening is that I’m hungry.” Or, “I thought that I’d be able to sit down for dinner, but now I realize that the neighbor needs my help right now, and I’m going to go help.” And maybe there’s a little bit of grumpiness there or crankiness or something because you’re hungry. Instead of feeling like, “I really wanted to have dinner,” just realize, “Oh yeah, I’m just hungry, and this is what I’m doing now.”
And then this way in which we can meet what’s happening here on the near shore, what’s dubious and perilous, is can we meet it as best we can with care, with warmth? Can we welcome it as best we can? This is a tall order. This is so much what practice is about: how can we actually be with what’s happening? Meditation practice, we would say, a big part of it is to just build the courage and the capacity to be present in a warm-hearted way. Instead of saying, “Dang it, dang it, dang it,” just being like, “Oh, wow. Yeah, this is hard.” And just to acknowledge this is hard, and can we be okay with that? I keep on saying “as best we can” because what I’m pointing to is not something that we’re just going to start doing immediately or that will change everything tomorrow. But there’s this way that meditation practice really trains us in this non-resistance and presence, and that turns out to be actually the way to the far shore.
Let’s say that we’re at the near shore, which we might say is point A. Some of you have heard me say this before. And the far shore is point B, where the peace and freedom is over there, and the dukkha is over here. How we get over there, we could say the raft, is to be completely at point A. That is how we get to point B. And what does that even mean, to be completely at point A? That means to let go of resistance to how things are, let go of this secret idea like, “Yeah, okay, I’m going to tolerate this, but I hope it’s going to be better in the next minute.” Just saying, “Yep, this is how it is.”
To help with that, here’s a poem I’d like to share. This poem is by Rosemary Tramer,3 a poet I’m often quoting. She’s using the word “love” in this poem. We could say just meeting without any resistance is love. It’s complete welcoming and allowing. This poem has a little bit of chemistry in it. So for me, it’s like the dharma and poetry and chemistry. It doesn’t get better. So for me, this is… I don’t know, maybe my fellow chemist here will appreciate it as well.
Okay, here we go. It’s called “Love Like Water” by Rosemary Tramer.
Love like water
We could say the pain was a block so great it could not be moved.
We could say love did not try to move it.
Love simply dissolved the mass and surrounded it, the way water meets a block of salt, breaking apart each ionic bond until every atom of sodium and chloride is surrounded by molecules of water. And in this way, and sooner than you’d think, the pain was rearranged into minuscule bits. And there was no part of the pain that was not touched by love. The pain was no less, it’s true, but mixed with love, dispersed, the pain became something new,
something vital that encouraged a different kind of life, a substance that supported buoyancy, a medium to carry me.
Rosemary Tramer is pointing to how we don’t need to change the pain, but can we meet it directly? And the pain and us both get transformed when we do that. This path of practice is all about, can we do this? In meditation, in the same way, sometimes we’re having bodily discomfort or mental discomfort, and as best we can, we let go of the entanglements we have with it or the stories we have and just come back to the object, which is often the breath, or come back to the anchor. Just come back as best we can. This is what’s being asked of us in this practice. It turns out not to be really complicated, just not so easy.
I’ll read this poem again.
Love like water by Rosemary Tramer
We could say the pain was a block so great it could not be moved.
We could say love did not try to move it. Love simply dissolved the mass and surrounded it, the way water meets a block of salt, breaking apart each ionic bond until every atom of sodium and chloride is surrounded by molecules of water. And in this way, and sooner than you’d think, the pain was rearranged into minuscule bits. And there was no part of the pain that was not touched by love.
The pain was no less, it’s true. But mixed with love, dispersed, the pain became something new, something vital that encouraged a different kind of life, a substance that supported buoyancy, a medium to carry me.
I think I’ll end there and open it up to see if there are some questions or comments. Thank you.
Questioner: If we’re in a relationship, or even a job or career, and we find that it’s causing aggravation in some way or suffering in some way, how do we know whether we need to find a new relationship or a new job, or whether the issue is actually that we’re just not being mindful and present for what we’re going through now? It’s tough because, you know, if you’re suffering, I’m not always sure whether it’s something I need to make a life change or if it’s just me not dealing with it with the right perspective in the current situation. I find it to be very challenging.
Diana Clark: Yeah. So there’s a way in which we can have this idea about something—a new relationship, a new job, or whatever it might be—and there’s a way in which we’re only focused on that in order to get away from this. That might be a clue. Because chances are, if we’re not… let me say this. While we’re on the near shore—the dubious and perilous and all this kind of stuff—there’s something that we often can learn. We can learn about ourselves. I absolutely am not saying that we should stick in suffering or stick with the suffering, but there can be a way in which we can learn and grow from suffering.
So the question to ask yourself is, “Is it just to get away from something?” That’s one question. And the second is, “Do I feel like there’s something I can learn about myself here?” And if you feel like, “Nope, I’m just… I’m meeting this with a lot of freedom, and I’m meeting this with some clarity here, and I’m seeking help from other people if necessary, but this is just a really bad situation. My boundaries are getting crossed, I’m being disrespected,” or something like this, then it’s time to move on. Is that helpful?
Questioner: You’re talking about this practitioner that tended to place blame on other people. And I guess my question is, at certain points, I found myself the target of blame, despite whatever efforts I make, the blame remains there. So I guess I’m just wondering, any guidance on how to be in a relationship with somebody who… their view is blame? Who blames you?
Diana Clark: Well, this person I’m thinking about sometimes blames me for things. I try to think, “Well, what do I do?” It’s funny, I just think, “Oh, isn’t this interesting? This person’s blaming.” I don’t take it personally. I just feel like, “Oh, this is the way that they’re trying to deal with this discomfort.” And I don’t defend myself. I just… and I don’t try to make it better or do something different. I don’t know if that’s helpful at all, but I just say, “Wow, okay. So they must be uncomfortable because there’s blaming going on here.” And I don’t defend myself because it just feels like that validates the blame in some way to even start that conversation about, “Don’t blame me,” or something like that.
Questioner: My question was with regards to navigating giving advice to somebody in a crisis situation. So I tend to just tell them that I think the best thing to say to somebody would be that there’s a lot of hope for them. I’m sorry, I didn’t hear the last part. That there’s hope in the future. But what you’re saying is that you have to try to be present in the moment. But sometimes that moment is so, like, such a crisis for them that I often don’t know how to navigate that.
Diana Clark: Yeah, of course. Right. This is really difficult. And what’s being pointed to here is to not pretend like it’s not a crisis. It’s to, if it’s a crisis, to kind of acknowledge the crisis quality. Even though people often want to say, “Oh, it’s going to be fine. Don’t worry about it. It’s going to be better later.” So I’m not saying that we need to wallow around in the difficulty, but there’s… I know this, like when my father died, it was kind of a relief when people actually said, “You know, I’m sorry your father died,” instead of trying to tiptoe around and not knowing what to say. It just felt like, “Oh, okay, yeah, now we’re speaking authentically.”
So I’ll say this idea about hope for the future… I guess the language that I often use is, “We don’t know exactly what the future holds, but we do know that things change.” And sometimes that feels tangible. That feels like, “Oh yeah, we all have this experience that things change.” We don’t know exactly. We don’t know if it’s going to be better. We don’t actually know if it’s going to be better, but it will be different than how it is now.
Dukkha: A Pali word often translated as “suffering,” “stress,” or “unsatisfactoriness.” It encompasses a wide range of experiences from minor irritation to deep anguish and is a central concept in Buddhism, representing the inherent unsatisfactoriness of conditioned existence. ↩
Asanka: A Pali word that can be translated as “suspect,” “unreliable,” or “deceptive.” In the context of the talk, it describes the “near shore” as a place of false promises that cannot provide a stable foundation for true happiness. ↩
Rosemary Tramer: An American poet whose work often explores themes of nature, spirituality, and personal transformation. ↩